Sega's Next Horror Game

Now that the Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft press conferences are over, it's finally time to get a look at some video games and talk to the game makers out at the E3 trade show.

My first meeting of the show was with Sega vice president of marketing Scott Steinberg, because he's usually not shy about throwing rocks when he sees a problem in the game industry. But I found that like a lot of game executives, he's not picking a winner for this generation of the console wars just yet.

"Will there be a leader over the next year or two? I don't think so," he said. "All the platforms are viable right now."

Sure enough, the company's upcoming lineup is spread pretty evenly across all the consoles and the handheld devices, from kid-friendly titles for the Wii that use the company's famous "Sonic the Hedgehog" mascot, to a very dark title called Condemned 2 that's on the way for the Xbox 360.

The original Condemned was a mystery game that felt kind of like a horror-suspense movie in action, like the movie Se7en. The new one, well, it's no Sonic game.

This time around, the player has a little more freedom about how to play, and in that case it means more ways to beat the bad guys up. For example, smash a bottle of alcohol on somebody who's attacking you, then hit him with a taser and he bursts into flames. Not sure what I think of that, but it's certainly something I've never seen in a game before.

"We've figured out how to scare the [heck] out of the player," cackled the game's producer.

-- Mike Musgrove

By Mike Musgrove  |  July 12, 2007; 11:48 AM ET  | Category:  E3 2007 , Mike Musgrove
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